by Mary Balogh
“Ah, but you are merely an hysterical little deaf girl,” he said. “One who walks in her sleep and is obsessed with her lover’s dead wife. One who runs to him for protection every time she is frightened—and she is always frightened. Go back to the house, Lady Emily. Your charges are absurd.” He turned back to examine the wheel again.
She returned to the house, her back prickling with terror the whole way. He was right. Even if she could write everything down quite coherently, she had no modicum of proof for anything. And she had become hysterical. But she would do it anyway. She was not going to let Ashley sell Penshurst. And she was not going to let Luke and Anna take her back to Bowden tomorrow.
She was going to stay and fight. For Ashley and for herself.
• • •
The footman in the hall and the butler who joined him there on Ashley’s return did not know where Major Cunningham was, though they believed it was somewhere outside the house. The butler thought he was probably in the carriage house, personally supervising the preparations for the afternoon’s drive.
“You will find him,” Ashley said curtly, “and ask him to meet me in the ballroom at his earliest convenience.” He turned toward the staircase and took the stairs two at a time.
Some minutes later, as he was leaving Roderick Cunningham’s room, he came face-to-face with Luke.
“Ah,” Luke said, “the wanderer has returned. And the revelries are about to begin.” His eyes lowered to the sword Ashley held in his hand and moved to the other sword he wore at his side. He pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. He looked thoughtfully at the door to the major’s room.
“I am on my way to the ballroom,” Ashley said. “He is to meet me there. Go to the ladies, Luke, if you will be so good, and keep them well out of the way.”
“I trust,” Luke said, looking again at the swords, “that there is good reason?”
“Every reason in the world,” Ashley said.
“Then I shall be present in the ballroom too, my dear,” Luke said. “After I have given my instructions to Anna and to Emily, that is.” He turned and walked away without another word.
• • •
Major Cunningham was already in the ballroom when Ashley arrived there. He was standing in the middle of the floor looking up at the high-coved ceiling.
“’Tis really quite magnificent, by Jove,” he said, half glancing at Ashley. “I did not particularly look up when you gave me the tour of the house, Ash. Are you planning to give a ball here? A farewell ball, perhaps? I would be delighted to assist you.”
“No,” Ashley said.
“Then why the summons here?” His friend looked at him with a grin. “It had a dash of mystery to it. The ballroom in the middle of an afternoon.” But his eyes had lighted on the sword—his own—clutched in Ashley’s hand. Then they moved to take in the sword at Ashley’s side. And finally they looked up to Ashley’s grim face. “Ah, Lady Emily has spoken to you already then?”
“I have been your dupe,” Ashley said.
“No, Ash.” Major Cunningham did not move from where he stood. “You have been my friend. You still are.”
Ashley saw the major’s eyes move beyond his shoulder and guessed that Luke had come into the ballroom. He did not look back and Luke made no move to intrude.
“You killed my wife,” Ashley said. “And my son.”
“He was not your—”
“You killed Thomas Kendrick, my son,” Ashley said. “You killed Lady Ashley Kendrick, my wife.”
“Ash.” Major Cunningham spread his hands to his sides. “She was a wicked woman. You have learned that for yourself during the past week. She killed her own brother, for whom she had an unnatural passion, to prevent him from marrying a woman she thought beneath him and to prevent that woman’s child from becoming his heir. She made you miserable. Do you think I did not know that? I was your friend. I released you from a life sentence.”
“’Twas why you befriended me,” Ashley said. “So that you could get close to her.”
“But I soon felt a genuine friendship for you,” Major Cunningham said. “I did for you what you could not even dream of doing for yourself, Ash.”
“Why was she at home that night?” Ashley asked.
The major shrugged and looked apologetic. “She disliked me,” he said. “Much can be made of dislike, Ash. Attraction can come of dislike. She found me attractive.”
“And you knew I would be safely from home for the night,” Ashley said. “Did you arrange that too?”
“A few words supposedly from Mrs. Roehampton to you, a few words supposedly from you to her . . .” The major shrugged. “I merely enabled the two of you to recognize a mutual attraction, Ash. Forgive me for the pain you felt afterward. I know there has been a great deal. But I rescued you from a great evil. I am glad you have discovered the truth. Yes, I truly am. Now you will be able to let go of your damnable sense of guilt. You will realize that you were not in any way to blame for what happened.”
“You murdered my wife and son,” Ashley said.
“Murder,” the major said softly. “’Tis a harsh word, Ash. I am a soldier. I have killed a hundred times—more. I have never thought of myself as a murderer. And if ’tis any consolation, they died quickly, the two of them, and the nurse—they were dead before the fire. I did that much for them.”
“You tried to kill Lady Emily Marlowe yesterday morning,” Ashley said.
“Oh no, Ash.” Major Cunningham raised a staying hand. “I am an excellent shot. I was close. I was careful to hit the target I had set myself. If she had only been capable of hearing, I would not even have had to graze her skin.”
“And last night?” Ashley asked. “You have been deliberately trying to terrorize her. You were in her room. You took her night robe. You put the portraits there. Why? But I need not ask that, need I? You have correctly divined my feelings for her. You have thought to drive her away and therefore to drive me away. You very nearly succeeded.”
“You could not be happy here, Ash,” the major said. “Not with your wife’s ghost haunting you every day of your life. Not with the knowledge that young Eric should be living here as the rightful owner. A few hours more and his mother would have been married to his father. Sell to me. I will marry Katherine and make the boy my son. He will be where he belongs, and so will she.”
“Just tell me what happened on the morning of your arrival,” Ashley said. “What did you do to frighten Lady Emily so?”
“She has not told you?” Major Cunningham laughed rather ruefully. “My apologies, Ash. I saw her in what I now realize is a common guise. But at the time I mistook her for a milkmaid. No harm was done—fortunately for all of us, she is rather fleet-footed. Since discovering her true identity, I have been the soul of honor. Besides, I have other interests of a more serious nature than that aroused by milkmaids. Come, Ash, shake my hand. There is no point in making a damned quarrel of all this.” He held out his right hand and took a step forward.
“One of us is going to die here today,” Ashley said. “If ’tis me, my property will become Harndon’s. He will discuss with you how he wishes to dispose of it. If ’tis you, I will bury our friendship with you and consider that the deaths of my wife and my son and the nurse as well as the terrorizing of Lady Emily Marlowe have been justly avenged. I have brought you your own sword, as you see.”
“This is very foolish, Ash, and very unnecessary,” Major Cunningham said. “I have no wish to kill you.”
“Then you must stand and be killed,” Ashley said. “I suggest we strip down to shirts and breeches.”
He set down the major’s sword on the floor and walked away to prepare himself. Luke was standing motionless inside the door, looking tight-lipped and rather pale.
“Ash,” he said quietly as his brother removed his skirted coat, “let me do this for you. I have a reputati
on as a swordsman that has been well earned, I believe.”
Ashley’s smile was somewhat grim. “I had to do something for physical exercise in India,” he said. “I practiced swordplay. Besides, Luke, they were my wife and my son. And Emmy is my woman.”
“Yes,” Luke said rather sadly. “I love you, brother.”
Ashley grinned. “Zounds but I will hold those words over your head for the rest of your life,” he said, setting his long waistcoat down on top of his coat. He was no longer smiling when he straightened up and withdrew his sword from its scabbard. “Luke, tell her I love her. Care for her if she is with child.”
“Yes,” Luke said. “For your sake and because she is almost my sister and almost my daughter. She will always have my love and my protection. So will any child of hers—and yours.” He strode away then to the middle of the ballroom to talk quietly with Major Cunningham, who was ready in his shirtsleeves, drawn sword in hand. After a minute or so, Luke looked across at Ashley and nodded curtly.
“’Tis, as I understand it,” he said when Ashley had approached and the two men stood face-to-face and had crossed swords, “a fight to the death. Nevertheless you will not begin until I give the signal and neither one of you, for honor’s sake, will hit the other from behind or stab the other when he is down.”
Ashley had not noticed that Luke too was wearing his sword. But he had it drawn now and set it beneath their crossed swords. Major Cunningham’s eyes were on Ashley’s, cool, calculating, rueful. He was a friend, Ashley thought, who had betrayed him during every moment of their friendship. A friend who must now die or who must kill him. This was no moment for sentiment, for regrets, for hurt feelings of betrayal.
Luke’s sword came up, and with a clash of steel the swords of the combatants were separated. “Begin,” he said.
Major Cunningham was solidly built, strong, and fit. He was a soldier. As an officer, he habitually carried a sword. He led his men into battle with drawn sword. But that did not necessarily make him an expert in its use during single combat. Ashley was slender in comparison, taller, also fit. He had never been in a real sword fight. But, as he had just told Luke, he had learned and practiced the art of swordplay.
And Ashley had the advantage of motivation. His anger was cold and controlled. Alice had been many things. Perhaps—even probably—she had been a wicked woman. Certainly she had been a tormented woman. But she had been his wife and under his protection. Thomas had been another man’s son, conceived in sin. But he had been an innocent baby, and a baby to whom Ashley had given the protection of his name. Emily was simply his love. He fought for all three of them, so that the two might finally rest in peace, so that the third might again live in peace. And he fought, though he did not consciously think of it, for the restoration of his honor, lost when his wife and child died while he was in the arms of another woman.
Swordplay, he discovered, was very different from serious combat. Swordplay was conducted according to strict rules of gentlemanly etiquette and honor. Combat was not. And in combat a hit drew blood. Major Cunningham drew first blood after several minutes of circling and clashing swords and sizing each other up. He did something with his left hand that drew Ashley’s attention away from his sword for a mere fraction of a second and in that time was past Ashley’s guard and had pricked him on the right shoulder.
There was pain, shock, and a fast-spreading stain of red in the corner of Ashley’s vision.
“Enough, Ash,” Major Cunningham said, his voice breathless. “You have made your point. Honor has been served. Enough now.”
“To the death,” Ashley said coldly. Though it was painful, the wound did not incapacitate him. Instead it made him cautious. It made him grimly aware with his whole body of what his mind already knew—that one of them was to die. He ended the momentary lull in the fighting and bore his opponent back with the force of his attack.
They fought to what seemed an inevitable stalemate. They fought for long minutes until it seemed that exhaustion must end the fight before death did. But Major Cunningham lost his patience first. He lunged forward into what was only an illusory opening. A mere turning of Ashley’s body sent the major’s sword harmlessly past. But Ashley’s own sword, firmly held, impaled his enemy.
The major went very still as his sword clattered to the ballroom floor. He stared into Ashley’s eyes, and a peculiar twisted smile distorted his lips. A line of blood oozed from one corner of his mouth and trickled down to drip off his chin. Ashley pulled his sword free, and the dead body of his erstwhile friend crumpled at his feet.
Ashley looked down at the red sword in his hand and dropped it to the floor. There was no feeling of relief at being the survivor. There was no feeling of triumph at being the victor, or of guilt at having killed a man. There was no feeling at all. He stared downward.
“You will need to have that shoulder tended to, Ash. You are losing blood.” Luke’s voice. Cool and calm, as might have been expected of him.
“Yes,” Ashley said.
“’Twas a fair fight. And a necessary one,” Luke said.
“Yes.”
“And if I ever again see you for one hairbreadth of a second take your eye off the sword of your opponent, even in a friendly bout,” Luke said, his voice shaking, “I will personally thrash you within an inch of your life, Ash. With a horsewhip.”
“Yes,” Ashley said.
“I shall see to everything here,” Luke said. “I shall have the nearest magistrate summoned and the body attended to. Go and have that blood stanched, Ash. Anna is stouthearted. Go to her in Emily’s room. I instructed them to wait there. She will not have disobeyed my instructions. Do you need help with your coat?” He was again the cool, practical Duke of Harndon.
“No,” Ashley said. He walked to his discarded clothes and pulled on his coat, heedless of either the pain or the blood. He turned to leave.
“Ash,” Luke called.
Ashley looked back.
Luke said nothing for a moment. He merely nodded his head. “I meant what I said earlier,” he said. “Just in case you are ever in doubt.”
Ashley left the ballroom.
28
THE sky was cloudless. It was going to be a clear blue when the sun rose. It was going to be a warm day. She walked first along by the river, looking across its smooth glassy surface, watching another mother duck—or perhaps the same one—lead her babies in a line down the very center of their highway. Then she walked up the hill, wandering in no particular direction, touching the bark of tree trunks, feeling grass and soil beneath her bare feet, breathing in sweet, cool air.
She stopped at one particular tree and saw that the bullet was still lodged there, just below the level of her eyes. She did not even look over her shoulder. She did not feel afraid any longer. Last night she had slept alone in her room, despite Anna’s pleadings. She had not felt afraid.
Yesterday had been a horrid day. First the threat of having to leave Penshurst and of knowing that Ashley planned to sell it for her sake. Then her foolhardy confrontation with Major Cunningham. Then Luke’s coming to them—to her and Anna—with set face and that look of authority that even Anna dared not defy, and commanding them to go to Emily’s room and to stay there until he or Ashley came for them. And the long wait, during which they had both known that something was dreadfully wrong. Then Ashley’s coming, white-faced, to tell them that all was well, that there was nothing more whatsoever to fear. Then he had stumbled forward, grabbed at a chair, overturned it, and landed on his knees. They had seen the blood.
Major Cunningham was dead. Ashley had killed him. Neither he nor Luke had given any great detail, but they had said that the major had killed Alice and Thomas and that in his determination to own Penshurst he had terrorized Emily, hoping that fear would drive her away and convince Ashley to sell.
She had helped Anna half lift, half drag Ashley to her bed and had helpe
d remove his stained coat and cut away his blood-soaked shirt. But she had cleansed and bound the wound herself while he had watched with half-closed eyes.
She hated to think of the sword fight in which Major Cunningham had died. But she was not afraid any longer. She looked upward and turned about and about. The world was a beautiful, spinning place. Especially the natural world. If one remained a part of it, merely one creature among many, one’s feet firmly resting on earth, great happiness was possible. And peace. She was happy this morning. She felt at peace with the world.
She wanted to watch the sun rise across the river. She wanted to see the colors of dawn reflected in the water. Perhaps one day she would paint the scene. But not today. Today there was too much beauty to behold in nature itself to spoil it by getting out her paints and analyzing the meaning of it all. This morning she was content merely to watch and to feel. Merely to be. She made her way toward the summerhouse.
She was standing in front of it, gazing down the hill and across the fields to the horizon, when she sensed that her morning was going to be complete. She turned her head and smiled. He was wearing his arm in the sling she had fashioned for him yesterday. But he had lost yesterday’s pallor. And his eyes, smiling back at her, were clear of the suffering and the darkness that had lurked there since his return from India. She could see that at last he was at peace with himself.
He came to stand beside her, and set his good arm about her waist. She rested her head against his shoulder and together they watched the sun come clear of the horizon in a blinding burst of glory. She looked up at him and smiled. His eyes reflected the brightness of the sun. Not a word had passed between them. The peace, the silent communion, was perfect.
